USENIX To Free Its Papers

from the open-science dept

Matt Blaze points out that USENIX, one of the world's most important computer science conferences, has decided to make all of its papers and proceedings freely available to the public immediately upon publication. Blaze is right that this is a great development. In the past, when paper distribution was the norm, it was unavoidable that academic publishers would charge money to cover the costs of printing and distributing the papers they published. But the web has made these costs close to zero. And given that the authors generally donate their papers to journals and conferences free of charge, and that authors want their papers to be read as widely as possible, it seems a little unreasonable for those conferences to turn around and charge money for web access to those same papers. This is especially true because, while most journals and conferences still print paper copies of their publications, scholars increasingly prefer the convenience of downloading papers from the web and printing them on demand. It seems especially perverse to cripple a cheap and convenient distribution mechanism in order to prop up an outdated one that is increasingly falling into disuse. The USENIX announcement is the latest sign of growing momentum for free online publication of scientific papers. While we shouldn't expect it to happen overnight, it's only a matter of time before free, web-based publication of scientific papers is the norm, rather than a news-making exception.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: free, research, usenix


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2008 @ 11:00pm

    Hope it spreads

    Anything that is educational like this I hope to see in the public domain one day. If corporate scientists do research and discover something, fine they can have a LIMITED patent/copyright on whatever it was.

    But when its done in a University type setting or similar "for the good of mankind" kinda thing it should be free and widely distributed. Thanks to the good ol' 'Net this is now possible.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.